


the prayer

by mortalitasi



Series: bones and violets [4]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, First Time, Fluff, Romance, fluff fluff fluff, vague mentions of csa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-09
Updated: 2017-10-09
Packaged: 2019-01-15 04:36:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12313857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mortalitasi/pseuds/mortalitasi
Summary: Grace never thought she'd be leaping over this particular milestone feet-first, but here she is, and here he is.There is no one else she'd rather leap with.





	the prayer

**Author's Note:**

  * For [goatrocket](https://archiveofourown.org/users/goatrocket/gifts).



> HELLO EVERYONE CONTENT WARNING FOLLOWS HI HELLO PLEASE READ ME THIS FIC contains mentions of (past) csa, and more than overt mentions of two people in love displaying that love physically. one of these people is Cole. if this is not your cuppa, please save us both some time and hit your backspace button.
> 
> as always, Grace doesn't belong to me-- i'm simply borrowing her from her disgustingly talented mom so i can write about her.
> 
> lastly, on a more sober note: it's good to remember that everyone recovers from trauma at their own pace. someone's healing process isn't "slow" or "fast" compared to another's. we're all trying to get to the same place, but we aren't walking the same paths to get there. you aren't alone, and you can be happy. i love you all, and goodnight.

Time breeds familiarity, but Grace is nothing if not a careful creature.  
  
Well. Where people are concerned, anyway. Dorian has quite a few things to say about her risk-taking, about her propensity toward handling explosives, how much she appreciates the finer aspects of death, and how she generally chooses to spend her time in Skyhold. She misses his nagging, truly; she still expects to find him in the library, overlooking the rotunda with careful grey eyes, but the place is empty. Solas no longer lingers in the study—his last fresco sits unfinished; and up above, high in the tower, Leliana’s absence is felt keenly in the rookery, her tall figure missing in the forest of bird cages.  
  
It’s lonely—definitely lonely, in a way, and yet she can’t find it in herself to be sad, or angry. She can’t resent any of her friends pursuing their own path any more than she can resent herself for changing. The spring this year seems different to her—Skyhold is bereft of most of its key inhabitants, but it still feels like home.  
  
It’s not like she never hears from them, either: the letters on her desk prove as much. The topmost ones on the pile bear the seal of Kirkwall. Varric is a loquacious writer, and his flair for sarcasm translates well even in personal correspondence. Grace keeps them bound with a purple ribbon—the one she’s halfway through reading will be added to the collection once she comes to the end of it, lovingly folded and preserved, a tangible memory to carry into the future. Something tells her she’ll need every reminder she can get in the times to come. She’s developed a sense for these things—she supposes being Inquisitor will do that to you.  
  
“Is it interesting?”  
  
Cole’s voice is a lot closer than she remembers it being. She returns to being aware of reality, pulled from her drifting thoughts, realizing she’s still staring blankly at the book opened in front of her. It’s an exhaustive account of the Orlesian Empire during the height of its Golden Age—and all the alchemical advancements that were made in response to the Emperor pouring so much gold into Orlais’ universities—but she hasn’t been reading for some time now. Grace wipes at the page with a pale hand and shrugs.  
  
“It _is_ interesting,” she sighs, propping her chin up on a palm. “But I can’t concentrate.”  
  
He’s sitting across from her on the large mattress of her overly-spacious bed, leaned up against the headboard, whittling at a small block of cherry-red wood; she can see the shape of a mabari’s head emerging from the topmost part of the piece, one that looks suspiciously like Comet’s. He’s improved by leaps and bounds since he started—he’d been carving the day they’d first kissed in the barn, she remembers fondly. Or, rather, _almost_ kissed. Boldness in romance has never been a strong point of hers.  
  
“Some days just aren’t for reading,” he says, blinking at her with wide blue eyes. He tips his little project in her direction. “Would you like to watch?”  
  
She smiles at him, because she can’t help it—he brings that out in her. She shuts the book with one hand and then shuffles over further, laying on her stomach and blowing several frizzy curls out of her line of sight. “Sure,” she says, feeling warmth pool in her cheeks and stomach when he smiles back.  
  
Good food and long months of peace—no trudging around in swamps infested with virulent plagues and not worrying about the inherent end of the world is good for the health, surprisingly—has let him fill out. Cole will always be more wiry and lean than an example of blocky strength, the way someone like Bull is, but the shade of a starved boy is gone. He slouches still, a little bit, but mostly walks at his full (and rather impressive) height, learning quickly how to settle into the mold of humanity. A feeling of distance still clings to him—like he knows things you don’t, as he probably does—and it likely will forever, though she doesn’t mind. She wouldn’t change him for anything. He is real and good, just the way he is.  
  
She can hardly believe he’s sitting here, on her bed, dressed in blue linens and leather leggings, the silky-fine down of his hair gathered into a loose tail at the back of his neck. Now that his complexion boasts some color, she can see every freckle and sunspot on his cheeks, the rosy cast of his pleasantly-shaped mouth—his body seems to love being human, and it becomes him so wonderfully.  
  
“When I asked you to watch, I meant the carving,” he murmurs, and she makes a face at him. Slyness is a new thing, coming from him, but it’s not altogether unwelcome.  
  
She pokes one of his legs with a reprimanding finger. “Alright, alright. Carry on.”  
  
He laughs softly and does as instructed.  
  
For a while it goes on like that, and she feels her nerves dissipate as she continues to focus on the soothing repetition of Cole’s knife curving into the wood. The sunlight coming in through the high windows of her room is washing the entire place in gold. She looks on as he lovingly delineates the outline of what will become a foreleg, the arch of the mabari’s back, and the crest of its chest. She wonders where he’ll put it when he’s finished—his corner above the tavern is full of the figurines he hasn’t given away or discarded; where this one is destined to go, she can only guess.  
  
Grace flinches when something dry hits her temple, sticking to the skin above her brow.  
  
“Oh,” Cole says, struggling not to smile. “Sorry.” He leans in, a careful hand outstretched, and picks a wood shaving out of her hair.  
  
She has to laugh at the utterly sincere way he apologizes, as if he’d dealt her a grievous wound. “How will you ever make it up to me?” she asks, maybe a little more dramatically than she’d intended, expecting some sort of cryptic, Cole-like rejoinder; but all he does is look at her, and then she becomes aware of how close they truly are. He’d neglected to return to his previous position after cleaning the shaving away.  
  
She can’t see what he does, as he does: she doesn’t know he’s feeling rather transfixed by the way the light gathers at her back, setting her bone-white hair aglow—it’s more of a halo than anything else, held back by a velvety purple band that’s worn with use. She is so beautiful, he thinks, and she can’t  really see it. All of her, even the things she perceives as imperfections: the imperial, aquiline nose, the perhaps overly-large eyes, hooded and dusted with dark lashes… the kind mouth.  
  
“Cole?” she says, quietly, and is rewarded with a gentle kiss.  
  
“Sorry,” he repeats, somewhat sheepishly. “My turn to stare.”  
  
Maybe a year ago, or even half a year ago, that would have made her hide her reddening face—that’s not to say the reddening isn’t happening, because it is—but today she instead pulls him closer to seal her lips over his.  
  
He’s surprised, at first, the way he almost always is when she overcomes him with spontaneous affection, but he settles into it easily. She wants to get closer, tries to, and doesn’t understand why he stops her. Then she hears the sound of the knife and wood clattering to the carpeted floor—she has no time to feel ashamed she forgot something so important before he hooks his arms around her waist and all but lifts her into his lap.  
  
Her hands rest on his arms, fingers curling around the definition she finds there. He’s warm, and solid, and she has no real intention of letting go.  
  
They have to part for breath at some point, touching foreheads. She can feel the whole spread of his palm against the small of her back, hot through the cotton of her tunic. Grace combs her hand through the fuzzy hair at his nape, feeling him shudder.  
  
“We should stop,” he says. A flush has spread all the way down to his clavicle.  
  
For a long moment, she’s about to agree with him.  
  
And then a small, strident voice inside her pipes up, completely indignant. _Why should we?_ She tenses, taken aback by the fact that she’s even considering it a possibility. It’s not—she’s never really thought that far, or… she’s pretended she hasn’t thought that far. Hasn’t let herself. Even with Cole. It’s always seemed like a distant, very improbable thing; who would want to touch her? Why would she let them? Why would she _willingly_ put herself into a situation where everything could go so horrendously wrong, where she would be destined to relive things she’s left behind? It seemed silly. Annoying. A series of _annoying_ , invasive, rhetorical questions. Nothing worth dwelling over.  
  
_But he knows. He knows, and he’s perfectly happy with being close to you. Isn’t he_?  
  
She has to concede to that, at least.  
  
“What if we didn’t?” she asks, in something hilariously like a stage whisper.  
  
Now he really pulls back, surprise written all over his face, in his ice-clear eyes. “Grace…?”  
  
She fumbles. “I mean—only if you _wanted_ —I didn’t even ask, and that’s—very crucial to… to…”  
  
“No, no,” Cole interrupts, laying a hand on her cheek. “Grace—I would. I mean… I would want to. With you.”  
  
She doesn’t know what she expected—that was really the most predictable answer, but panic has a way of muddling everything. “Oh,” is all she manages, sounding a good deal stupider than she intended. “I just thought…”  
  
Cole’s hand curves, fingers brushing at her jaw. “That’s not it. You’re special to me. Singularly so. Significant.”  
  
“I know,” she mumbles, kissing his palm. “You’re special to me, too. Which is why… I think I need to try. Would you be mad if…?”  
  
“Mad?” Cole asks incredulously. “No, never. Not even a little bit. If you’re comfortable—that’s what matters.”  
  
She shivers. Reality is encroaching again. “I might not ever be, not completely.” She brushes her thumb over his bottom lip. “But I think it’ll be alright, if it’s you.”  
  
The words hover in the space between them, dissolving in the silence.  
  
“So,” Cole says in a low voice. “…What do we do?”  
  
She can’t help the burst of laughter that escapes her. Still earnest, even now. “Um…”  
  
“I’ve never…” Cole bobs his head meaningfully, at a loss for words. “But I’ve seen—”  
  
“ _What_?”  
  
“Back when I could,” he explains hurriedly. “Thoughts, drifting. _Very_ distinct. I, ah—”  
  
“Oh,” she says for the second time in as many minutes. “ _Oh_.”  
  
“Yes,” he murmurs. “Bull.”  
  
“Well,” Grace croaks, her hands growing clammy. “Depending on how this goes, we might have to thank him later.”  
  
Cole’s eyes bug out comically. “ _Please_ , no.”  
  
She giggles, and the tension shatters, just like that.  
  
It’s slow-going, at first, shy and curious, nothing they haven’t done before—embraces and caresses—but it’s strange to know that the previously self-imposed barrier is no longer there (for as long as she wishes it be absent, anyway). He reaches up to relieve her of her hair-tie, which is somehow an entirely predictable move, and in return she yanks out his own. It makes him chuckle—he has just enough time to express that amusement before she bowls him over, or he _lets_ her bowl him over. The distinction doesn’t really matter.  
  
It’s nothing like she remembers, if what she has could be called memories of the genuine article at all. Her stomach is roiling, and she knows she is anxious, but there is a safety about her—about him—that’s what she needs to know this is not the last time, and that it won’t be again.  
  
She has to stop, a couple of times—once after she discards her own shirt, and once when he strokes a hand up her thigh—and they link hands, and she breathes steadily, and the feeling passes. It’s strangely intoxicating, looking back into the face of her fear, and all but spitting in it. _I’m doing what I want. You can’t stop me._ She learned early on that fear wasn’t the best of measures—it lies well, naming demons in shadows where there are none. You have to learn to tell them apart—when the danger is real, and when you only think it’s real.  
  
And she feels like she’s supposed to—excited, but nervous, ready to explore. Girlish. Something she’d thought she’d lost. Something she’s dizzyingly happy to have back.  
  
“Are you alright?” he says, wiping a tear from her chin. He’s beautifully mussed and flushed from her attentions, hair tousled, lips ruddy.  
  
“Yes,” she answers, startling herself with how she actually believes in her response. She nods, smiling. “Yes.”  
  
“That’s good,” he mutters—and is promptly pulled into another kiss.  
  
The rest is mercifully, absolutely nondescript; awkward, perhaps, at times, when she can’t figure out how to ask him for what she wants and meanders around her meaning, and when they nearly fall off the bed together upon trying to reverse their positions. She shocks herself with her eagerness—and probably him, too—with how she’s able to remember that this is Cole, and that the worry she’s been holding onto for so long most likely started lessening earlier than she had estimated. She doesn’t think she’s perfect.  
  
There are no flowers or triumphant fanfares involved. But she’s being pleased and pleasing in return, in spite of a horror that would have stopped her before, and for that, there are no words.  
  
She’ll remember everything when it’s over—how the peak of her delight took her without warning, the reverent expression on Cole’s face, the clasp of his hands at her hips, the strange charm of being together with no clothes. He waited for her. It had been somewhat uncomfortable, in the beginning, but that had faded, for the most part.  
  
They lie on the hopelessly untidy covers, staring up at the ceiling, waiting for a normal rhythm of breath to return to them. Bizarrely, she isn’t ashamed of just being sprawled there, naked as the day she was born, in the company of another person. Maybe it’s because of what they just did. Maybe it’s just because she loves and trusts him like she never has anyone else before. Maybe it’s because of all of that combined. Everything is telling her this is right.  
  
“I didn’t know that could still happen for me,” she says after a pause. His hand slips into hers, their fingers lacing. “And it felt—great.”  
  
He breathes what could be a sigh of relief. “I’m glad.”  
  
She chances a look at him, pushing the fluffy cloud of her hair out of the way. “You could never disappoint me, Cole.”  
  
He clears his throat, squeezing her hand. “I worry.”  
  
Grace hums. “Performance anxiety, hm…? Now you really _are_ human.”  
  
“It’s not much of a price to pay,” he says, lifting their joined hands to press his lips to the back of her knuckles.  
  
Her eyes well up. “Why are you so sweet?”  
  
He turns to face her better, lying on his stomach. Like this she can see the criss-crossing milky scars on his back, and the scarlet tracks and divots her nails have left in his ridiculously pale skin. “That wasn’t supposed to make you cry,” Cole tells her.  
  
She gives him a watery laugh. “It’s because I’m happy.”  
  
He gets closer to press feathery kisses to her brow, her eyes, her throat, the apples of her cheeks—a small _I love you_ there in each one, and she bends into the tide of his tenderness like a starved woman.  
  
Grace nestles herself in the circle of his arms, pillowing her head on his shoulder. She’ll be able to talk about this and what it meant to her later, after she wakes up. He pulls up a sheet around them, and for the few minutes before drowsiness truly overtakes her, she listens to the steady beat of his heart under her ear. Real and good. Just the way he is.  
  
He doesn’t say anything or jostle her as she drifts off into the best kind of sleep—a dreamless one.  
  
For once, all is well.


End file.
